


Kitty

by LunnarChild



Category: Monsters Inc (2001)
Genre: Childhood, Gen, Growing Up, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:46:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunnarChild/pseuds/LunnarChild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simply a story about a friend who didn't exist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitty

"Kitty?" she's two, all wide-eyed smiles and vicious giggles, and there isn't a day that goes by where she isn't asking the same question at the same door. And every time, her smiles fall a little more than the last and experiences an emotion she doesn't understand. How could she? She's two and no one has ever thought to explain loss to a child who doesn't even understand the concept of death.

"Kitty!" she's six, she can string words together in a coherent sentence and is at that age where she never stops talking; she fires words off a mile-a-minute and there isn't a moment were she can never not stop telling stories with her make-believe play. These stories, like most little girls, contain fair beauties trapped in forgotten towers that are guarded by monstrous beasts. Except unlike most little girls, it's not a prince that comes to save his princess; it's the beast guarding the tower. Though she doesn't know it and never quite will, there is love between beauty and the beast, and that love is true but they never fall in love; they fall into adventures, daring rescues, and heart stopping moments of loyalty. And just as they come to the end of their tale, their final happily ever after, she turns looking for her faithful guardian, whispering his name in a moment of excitement ("Kitty!"), only to find a closed door and avacant space. It's a startling shock because he was there, because he was real – he is tall, taller than her father who's the tallest person alive, big, blue, and talks in a smooth voice with a toothy grin – and now he's not.

This is how her parent's find her: screaming over and over again about a cat, slamming doors, and pounding on her closet. And every time (because it doesn't just happen once), there's a moment before they can even act. There's a lump in their throat and their hearts give a painful jerk because their daughter looks like she just lost the most important thing in the world and she doesn't even know why. It's like watching a child at a funeral asking their realities why their parent is in a big box, why are they lowering them into the ground only to be covered by dirt – then not long after, the hysterical screaming, "they can't, they can't, they won't be able to breathe!" But it's worse because it's their daughter, she's lost the most important person in the world (there's a certain sting to it but they brush it off – their daughter needs them), and she doesn't even know why. It's even worse because they can't even give her an answer.

After the fifth fit, they take the closet door down. It's not even a month later when they put it back up. It was bad when it was there; it was indescribable when it wasn't.

"Kitty?" she's eight and she still hasn't found her indoor voice but this is the one word she can't speak louder than a whisper. She's in the third grade and kids are coming into class saying Santa isn't real. Kids are coming to class shouting big kids don't need imaginary friends. It shouldn't matter because she never had any imaginary friend; all her friends are real as she is. Except one. Just one. Her parents can't give her name because they have never met. She can't show him to her friends because there are no pictures of him (she thinks of the drawings she made when she was younger, a bulky blue stick figure with a fang-y smile and black button eyes), so she can't prove he was ever real. All she has are memories but they are more of an impression if anything. The feeling of a soft coat in a warm embrace, a safe feeling, a smile, and a voice that promised everything is going to be alright.

This is all she has and it is nothing. It's nothing because you can't show memories to other kids, you can't share feelings because feelings are only feelings because they make you feel. She's panicking now because there isn't any proof. She can't prove he was ever real because all she has are vague memories…and a door.

She's eight with only vague memories of an extremely important person and the impression of a promise that her closet had something to do with it. So this is where she stands, in front of her closet whispering the closest thing to a name ("Kitty?") in question and fear. She reaches for the door knob but freezes when her hand touches to cold metal. There is a part of her that sneers at herself for being such a baby, there's nothing there. The other part wants to cry because she knows there is nothing on the other side when something tells her that there should.

(The next day she gets into a fist fight with a boy from the next class over. When the teachers finally separate the two and ask why they did what they did, she can't give them an answer because it's about her friend. The friend that isn't there.)

"Kitty." She's fourteen and a half, she in high school and plays on the girls' soccer team (the team's colors are pink and blue). She says it like a name; she says it like a statement. It's not a question; it hasn't been for a long time. Not like it used to be.

Last time she let her mom bring up her soccer bag; her mom put it in the one place she never touches. The closet door is white with little pink flowers; she had fondness for it when she was younger, now it seemed too young for her. (She resents it, just a little and she can't remember why. The thought seems odd. Why would she need to remember a cause to dislike something that was just too young for her?) She sometimes thought about painting over it, but she never does because it wouldn't feel the same without it. She can't ever imagine living in this house and not seeing a white door with pink little flowers.

She says it again. "Kitty?" the words are drawn out this time. She scrunches her brow. It's a name and it used to mean something but she can't remember what. She instantly thinks of being sad, lonely but something deeper – it's the feeling of loss. She thinks of being safe and promises. She starts to think of a tall familiar stranger who wears blue and has a big smile. Her mother shouts her name from down stairs. She has a practice to get to and she needs her bag.

The moment she reaches for the closet door the overwhelming feeling of grief and disappointment cripples her. Her mother calls her name, more urgently this time, and she jogs to the door and down the stairs. She's halfway to practice when she realizes that she forgot to get her bag. She's two hours into practice when she realizes she did it on purpose.

"Kitty," it's a sigh and a question in one. She's nineteen, going to college, and she pauses at her closet door, white with pink little flowers. She wears her hair down and carries the last pieces of her childhood in her hand bag, everything else has been packed up for the move to the college dorms or storage. Now, as she stares at the closed door, everything seems too real. This last step too frightening a leap into the unknown. She doesn't even know what she wants to major in.

She doesn't even realize she's moving her arm until she feels her hand touch the cool plastic bubble hair band that pulls back a few locks of hair from her face. All the way up to her senior year, she's worn her hair in pig tails with the same two hair ties since she was a child. Then in the beginning of her final year at high school, one snapped. She remembered crying when she threw the broken hair ban into the waste bin. It felt like she was tossing away a bit of her childhood.

"Kitty?" she tries. It feels like a goodbye and she feels a little foolish. She can't remember having any good memories of this door but she feels grief in her chest when she looks at it. She feels the mourning of something that was good. She feels the hysterical laughter that threatens to spill from her lips. Here she was, nineteen – a legal adult going off to college, crying over a stupid door. It was ridiculous!

Her hand touches paper. It's the last piece of this place she wants to take to college. She doesn't have to unfold it to know what it is. Her mother gave it to her, kept it safe from a toddler's grubby hands for the last seventeen years. It's the crude drawing of a blue block figure holding the hand of a small child in a pink dress. At least she thinks it's a dress. When she looks at it, she thinks of this door and a person; a tall man wearing a big blue coat with a large toothy grin, a voice full of promises, and a confident stride. Except he wasn't a man and he was her friend.

She gives the door one last look before leaving.

She's twenty seven and she thinks of her old home. She's a writer now and working on her latest project; a children's story. So far it's been a bust, one dead end after another, the worst writers-block than she can ever remember having. Think like a child, they said, what do children want to hear? She thinks of adventure and home. Or rather the adventure of going home, endless series of doors, lights and laughter.

In a passing fancy and a good natured laugh, she pulls out an old drawing of a blue block figure. It's a crude drawing, a child's drawing. He (because she can't think of it as anything else than male) stands towering over what appears to be a small child. Bright blue rectangles stacked on top of each other and colored in with frantic scribbles and pink dots. He doesn't resemble a person, more like a monster. She laughs quietly because it's familiar and she doesn't know what to do. So she glances at the old drawing and shrugs her shoulders.

She pulls out her drawing pad and pencil and starts to try drawing this poor creature again, this time with a little more thought. She thinks of cats when she starts, but it ends up looking more bear like. She gives him curved little horns and a spiked tail. As she draws her hand feels mechanical and her thoughts drift. As she focuses on the details, she thinks of a door. It's white with little pink flowers and it gives her the promise of magic…she snaps herself out of her daydream and glances down –

She gasps breathlessly, "Kitty?!"


End file.
